How not to look like an idiot.

I'm not so good at thinking on the fly.  I may be able to narrow my eyes and spit out a mean comment that'll make a T-Mobile rep cry (ask my sister-in-law about that one), but being able to tout useful information on demand is beyond me.  Take work for an example.  I know how to write CSS, design nice looking pages, and throw together a working website, but when my co-worker asks me layout the CSS for our latest project, I draw a complete blank. 

On the drive home, I was comparing my mind to a search engine rather than a database.  I have to ask it to go out to other places to look for the information I need rather than storing it all in tidy orderly tables in my memory.  I suppose I've been ruined by Google in that fashion.  When information is at your fingertips, why hang onto it in your brain?  Of course, when you put it into practice, it makes a person look even less impressive than they really are. 

As a result, going back to my work example, I look as if I need to be guided through every step of the process.  Compounding that with the fact that I know there is an expected adherence to a style not yet defined, I find myself just using copy and paste to take existing style sheet information and using it in the current project.  Yes, my impressive knowledge of web design is to copy something my co-worker has already done.  Gee...

What I would really like to do is sit down and develop my calorie tracking tool on my own time to show that I'm not full of crap and that I can do this job.  Slight problem with that plan.  It comes in the form of a 2 1/2 foot tall, walking bundle of energy that is absolutely offended by computer use that consumes more than the time it takes for her to cross the room.  Yes, even blog posts.  I've had to walk away about 7 times so far.  That makes it difficult to keep focused on writing code.  She almost deleted a 9 page document that holds my writing from the Commander's point of view for my book by slamming on my backspace key repeatedly while I was trying to finish a sentence. 

So I suppose I'll go on looking like an incompetent idiot until I'm able to pound out code without looking up references.